, 1887-11-20
JERSEY CRANBERRY MARSHES.


rhc Thrifty Bush's Three EnemIes-
Flooding the Bos-Pickers at Work.
There are between 5000 and G,000
acres of New Jersey marsh under cram
berry cultivation to-day, which is about
one-quarter of the cranberry growing
area OF the United States, Massachu-
sets and Wisconsin being the other
principal growers of the fruit. A cram
berry marsh of the present day is as
handsome a plat of green things grow
ing as the y could rest upon, but the
rearing of the bushes on a new bog to
the age of fruit bearing is attended with
no end of care and toll, to say moth
ing of the expense. Since the cultivation
of cranberries assumed the proportions
of large and important agricultural pur-
suit in New Jersey, three enemies, not
ono of which assaulted the bush in its wild
state, have arisen up against it-a grass,
a bulrush and an insect. After n new
marsh or swamp has been cleared, ditch
ed and sanded, it is planted by takings
or slips from old bushes and inserting
n end of them in the layer of sand on
the peat soil, which is pushed closely
about the slips. Cranberry slips soon
take root in the generous peat, and begin
to grow almost Immediately. They
spread rapidly over the marsh, but be-
fore they have reached out their branches
many days the planter finds them sur
rounded and choked by the sharp edged,
stiff leaved, three square grass. and its
inevitable c%oadjutor, the hardy and per-
sistent bulrush.
The grass and the rushes must be re-
moved root and branch, for which pur-
pose curious gouges and peculiar hoes
and other implements nave been devised.
These pestiferous weeds have to be con-
stantly watched, and uprooted every
week or so for two seasons, so thoroughly
impregnated does the soil seem to be
with their germs and SO rapidly do they
develop. AT the end of the second year
the cranberry bushes nave obtained such
strength and Roadway that they cover the
ground all over the bog like an immense
velvety mat of emerald and have choked
the enterprising grass and rushes out of
existence. 1t is estimated that to foster
n cranberry bog to this state of its exist
ence costs the owner 500 an acre. If a
man should want to buy a 2-year-old bog.
thrifty and in perfect condition, he would
be lucky if he could obtain it for less thar
5000 an acre.
Cranberry bushes blossom at the be-
ginning of the third season., and from
that time on the grower may expect a
visit from the webworm, the most
dreaded enemy of the bog. A singular
characteristic of this insect is that it never
gives warning of its coming on a marsh.
TIL cranberry grower may go to bed al
night without having been able to dis
cover a sign of a webworm on his bushes.
and get up next morning to see the marsh
o as if it were covered with miniature
banks of fog, and the tops of the bushe.
drawn together SO tightly that a twin,
tied around them could hardly MAKE
hem any closer. The light banks of fog
are the webs of the worm, which have
been constructed during the night, anC
are what pulls the tops of the vines to-
gether. In a day or SO the vines turn
yellow, II the blossoms drop to the
ground, and the owner of that marsh
does not make any very large calcula.
tons on profits that year. About the
first of November they are submerged
under five or six feet of water with which
the boys are artificially flooded. This
water is drawn off about the middle of
May, and the bushes come to view as
fresh and green as a jun clover field.
There We're picked last year in the New
Jersey marshes nearly 200, 900 bushels o.
cranberries, which were sold at an av.
erage price of So a bushel. The yield
this year will not be more thar two
thirds of last years, but it is expected
that the price will be high enough to in
sure as large a return to the growers as
they had from the crop of 1886.
The inventive genius not only of Jer-
sey, but of the whole country, has taxed
itself annually in vain for ever so many
years to provide an automatic berry
picker. The harvesting of the cranberry
crop of New Jersey, and of all Other
places WHERE the berry is grown, is viz
tually in the hands of the people the
grower is forced to employ as pickers.
They bully and harass and boycott and
strike under the slightest provocation OF
their employers. The cranberry grower
has to walk humbly and circumspectly
about his boys or be disciplined roundly
by the gatherers of his crop. The owners
of cranberry marshes in New Jersey dis
tribute over So, 900 a day for two or three
weeks during the picking season alone t.
the people, many of whom would be
otherwise seeking aid from the town be-
fore spring, but for some reason the pick
ers regard the growers as their natural
enemies, and act toward them accord
ingly.-New York Mail and Express.
Stock of Street Fakirs.
II g 4, @,,lSn,t 81 r,,,,l ..a.,1.... l.